1. According to a press release issued by NBCI, The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African American churchgoers, strongly disagrees with the Pontiff's recent doctrines and the message they convey.

2. According to US News & World Report, The United States has fallen in economic prosperity relative to its peers worldwide, according to a new ranking. That much may not be surprising, considering the fallout since the recession.

3. According to Reuters, The U.S. government's top health official said on Wednesday that private insurance companies, not President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, are to blame for hundreds of thousands of people losing their coverage in the past few weeks.

4. According to News & Record, The "amens" at Tuesday's gathering of the state's largest body of black Baptists said they have had it with the policies out of Raleigh these past nine months. The General Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, which represents more than 500,000 African American Baptists in 1,600 churches, listened during a town hall meeting as legislators spoke of policies that they said will hurt a cross-section of people across the state.